And the Suffering Continues...

Apparently the hives weren't the only results of my little allergic reaction the other night.  After I took the Benadryl to stop the hives I was knocked out.  That children's Benadryl packs quite a punch.  I was late for work the next morning.  The office called at 8:15 when they hadn't heard from me and I was still weaving around like a drunk when I got out of bed.  It didn't wear off until almost noon.  That stuff should come with a warning!

Then my hands started peeling.  I mean peeling like a lizard peels.  BAD, bad peeling.  I've put Bag Balm on them a gajillion times a day and still peeling.  I've trimmed the skin off as it peels and they are still a wreck as you can see.  This is how they look now that it's almost stopped.

LB went to Lowe's for me today and returned home with these.  Wasn't that sweet?  Guess he doesn't like the amazing lizard wife.  He even got pink, my favorite color.  Who knew they had work gloves in pink?  (Don't tell LB but they really helped with the work I did today.)

So here are the tools all assembled now that I have my gloves all ready to protect my hands.  Those small tacks in the pictures came out of the chair.  LB inspected them and thinks they are original to the piece.  Hard to believe these are 120 or so year old tacks.  I guess they did make things to last back in the day.

After working all day I had this lovely pile.  This is the second round and the cleaning fairy already cleaned up the first pile.  I swear I don't know why old chairs have so many staples.  It really doesn't take that many to hold fabric.

That's my big helper's feet next to all the trash from today's work.  It's not easy to work around a 100 pound Chesapeake but I got it done.

And here she is all nekkid.  That's the original burlap around the bottom.  I'm going to leave it.  It was good enough for the last 100 years so let's hope it'll be good enough for the next.  I'm also going to re-use the original cotton batting and horse hair.  It's really clean, and let's face it, I certainly couldn't replace those items with anything better.  Horsehair is considered the finest you can still buy.  I am going to cover it with a layer of cotton quilt batting so it's all contained.

We are a little concerned with the edges around the chair where the arrow is pointing.  It looks this way in several places.  It apparently has been recovered several times in it's long life and the wood around the edge is really showing the damage.  It seems those old tacks were really hard on the wood in old chairs.  Unlike modern tacks the old ones actually split the wood when they entered it.  You can really tell in the edges.  LB is going to help me reinforce the really bad areas.  He and BugEater discussed it tonight and I think he has a plan.  I hope so...  Need something to put all those new staples in.

So what fun things are you up to this weekend?

LOVE, LOVE, KISS, KISS!

SNM